Meeting with Aldous Huxley
If you go to Lancaster at the edge of the Mohave Desert
you will be close to Pearblossom Heights, which is close to
Llano, where the Huxleys lived. Hitchiking and walking it
took me almost until noon to reach their place set back
from the road and surrounded by trees and shrubs, like a
kind of oasis in that hot, dry climate.
Mr. Huxley came out to greet me in the front garden. A very
tall, handsome man, it was obvious that he suffered from
visual impairment. He was followed by his wife, Maria, a
lovely Belgian lady who, upon seeing my underweight frame,
said briskly: "I'm going to fatten you up!" So, after the
usual small talk of introducing myself and being
introduced to them, I was invited to lunch, and we soon sat
down. As I did so, I noticed a large sculpture of D. H.
Lawrence in the corner of the garden.
They wanted to know a little of my recent history, and
so I described my meeting with Krishnaji, and the
quality of immense silence that I felt about his person.
Huxley said: "Well, you see, Krishnaji took you right
into the radiant silence wherein he
himself dwells. So you didn't have to wait in the
anteroom." I spoke about the great difference between
him and a man named Peter the Hermit who I had met on my
journey to Ojai. He lived in a kind of "camp" in a tent
with two dogs, one of whom was named "Annie Besant."
Later I found out that Peter had been a radical organizer
with the American I.W.W., often hopping on trains to get
around the country. On one of his stops he went to
a public library where, quite by chance, he found a
book by Brother Lawrence called The
Practice of the
Presence of God. And this book, in an instant, converted
him from radical political life to radical spiritual
involvement. When I met him he was in his sixties, all
dressed in white, with a clean, scrubbed look about
him. He mentioned his sparse vegetarian diet and his
shunning of all types of addiction.
Smelling my odor of tobacco he quickly fixed me with a
glaring eye and started in: "Yes, I can see that,
although you talk about spiritual life, that you're just
like the rest of them, standing in line for those
doomful cigarettes, shambling around life like an
animal, without the slightest notion of what you
ought to be doing.
Then he shouted: "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET UP ON YOUR
HIND LEGS AND AT LEAST ACT LIKE A MAN?" As I recounted
all of this to the Huxleys they laughed heartily. And Mr.
Huxley commented: You must understand, Kerwin, if you as a
young man go about contacting people who are on the
spiritual path, rest assured that they are going to
notice a great deal about you, and perhaps (without any tact)
make direct comments about what they see!" So I continued
about Peter the Hermit, and his own declaration of
independence from middle class life: He had said: "I wash
my own (pointing to his clothes), and I clean and prepare
my own food of the simplest kind."
I commented: "But why does he have to live in a kind of
gypsy camp on the edge of town?"
"Well," said Mrs.
Huxley, "it may be a way of showing the
world (and you too) that he is a beginning renunciate
who has embarked on a spiritual life which is bare and
simple without any of the amenities which are common in
modern America."
"Yes," said Mr. Huxley,"in a country like this, which is
based mainly upon consolations, the person who rejects that
ideal will probably live unconsoled and perhaps adhere
to a radical regime of fasting and prayer -- at least
in the beginning stages."
I said: "Well, I have heard of communities where people
practice a simple form of Communism, where they work
together and share everything, but I have also heard that
these communities rarely last --"
"Quite so," interjected, Mr. Huxley, "and indeed right
across the road from us is a powerful example of
one such experiment. May I tell you about it?"
"Please do," I said.
He continued: "In the early part of this century a large
group of people (who were idealists) gathered together and
formed a community known as Llano, right across the road
in the same area which we live now. They had been inspired
by the Christian Gospels and by various other groups
who had decided to do something radically different in
regard to living together so that like "The Three Musketeers"
it was 'All for one and one for all!' That was the
ideal, anyway."
"How many were involved?" I asked?
"Oh," he answered, "At first there was a small core
group of planners and movers and shakers, and then a large
group of interested, but not really active people. All in
all, several hundred, I believe.
"But how long did it last?," I said.
Huxley pondered awhile,
and then answered: "They had
about 300 acres, enough capital and enough
equipment and idealists to last up until about 1925.
Then the intense conflict between idealism and actuality
began to cut into their hopes. And so they got to
fighting, and within a few years the whole thing just
fell to bits, and what is left of the wreckage across
the road is all that remains of a large Utopian Community"
and he sighed, "not founded in reality." We had finished
lunch, and the Huxleys got up and escorted me down to the
road where we could see twin portals still standing, some
wrecked buildings, and a lot of rusting farm machinery.
"Well," I said, "they must have gone through a hellish
time before the whole thing went belly up."
"No," said Mr. Huxley, reflectively, "if you are thinking
of the Dante-esque hell of The
Divine Comedy, it wasn't like
that. Because Dante being a writer knew that he had to
provide a situation where people could actually
watch the sufferers in hell without themselves being part
of it. But here at Llano, since everyone was involved, there
were no spectators apart. You had to be in it and of
it to experience what they went through. Whereas in
Dante's observation of the Inferno you can have a safe
seat and comment: "Is that Smith down there in the fire
pits? Terrible sight! And a bit of a nasty smell
too ----" Huxley held his hand over his nose and made a
grimace. And then continued: "But however much we feel
for him, it's perhaps best not to be where he is, don't you
think?"
After Huxley had spoken about Dante, he
turned to other matters. To hear him take up a theme, develop it, and
then resolve the questions which appeared was really thrilling. He knew
what he was saying and he said what he was knowing. There was a natural
punctuation in his speech, with commas and semicolons placed correctly.
Paragraphs were properly placed too, and the climax or "point" of what
he was saying was never neglected. This speech, or "conversation", as you
will, was wonderful to hear. For I had never heard it done so well. And
it was also a matter of cadence, style, emphasis, supporting points,
and asterisks of intuition. Nothing canned (or rehearsed) about it at all.
And yet, if it was transcribed, it would read as clearly and as well as
it had been heard.
I knew about Huxley's enthusiasm for Thomas
Love Peacock (1785 - 1866), and I had made it a point (not knowing I was going to meet
him!) to read carefully and with enthusiasm the wonderful comic novels
written by this unusual 19th century author.
I bring this up because I could sense and feel in the
cadences of Husley's expression, the sure influence of Peacock in the
background. Indeed, before leaving I remarked upon this to him and he waved
me away by saying: "Oh, you are too kind!" But I could tell he was pleased
that I had brought it up.
And so the Huxleys continued for a while telling me about the
Lost community of Llano, and how it had vanished from the
Mohave Desert in only a few years, like a sodden rainbow
which fell from the sky before it could manifest as
a full spectrum.
And then Huxley, remembering no doubt what Isherwood had
said about me, asked: "What about your tussle with the draft
board about being a conscientious objector?"
I answered that the way things were going, they were
reserving for me a suite in the Graybar Hotel."
"The what?" Huxley asked.
"Oh," I answered, "it's just a more pleasant term for the
Federal Penitentiary which is more or less set up to
receive rebels who have a cause, even if not guilty of
moral turpitude in its demonstration."
Then, Mr. Huxley asked me: "So far in your Hejira in this
war-torn world, have you been threatened with violence?"
"Only once directly," I answered, when I was in a movie
theater, and they were showing footage of a group of
Japanese soldiers being incinerated with a flame thrower.
And the audience was laughing and clapping as if they had
just seen a comedty skit. After which everybody was
supposed to stand up and sing the National Anthem. I
refused to stand up, and came close to getting beaten up at
that time."
Then I remembered something
Krishanji had told me, and I repeated it to them: "He told
me that I did not come from a country with a pacifist
background, like India's, but with a strong violent
history. And that violence was not only a part and parcel
of my background, but was now present in my very blood and
bones. How to transcend that background without getting
crazy in the process?
And I also remembered what I had
heard when temporarily
incarcerated in the San Francisco County Jail, before
pre-sentencing review of my case. A middle-aged man,
obviously in bad shape, was unceremoniously brought into
the bullpen and just dumped on the floor, rather than
being led to a cell. After awhile I went over and asked
him where he had come from. "From Alcatraz on a writ of
habeas corpus." I asked "What happens if you get out of
line on Alcatraz?" He answered off-handedly: "Oh, they
take you down to deep-lock (which is the deepest dungeon)
and there they sap the whey out of you!"
Mrs. Huxley interrupted to ask:
"What is a sap?" I answered: "A sap is a leather bag,
filled with buckshot. It gives serious pain, but it leaves
no marks, so is used for third-degree interrogations from
which "free and voluntary" confessions are said to come.
Mr. Huxley interjected: And what
was the County Jail like?"
"Oh, I answered, it was a place
set up to punish either violence or non-violence, but it
definitely had a tone of anger and fear.
Huxley asked: "Did you meet any
memorable people? I said, "Yes, one outstanding person,
who had suddenly become a conscientious objector under
exceptional circumstances and was brutally punished for
it.
"Please tell us about him", Huxley
asked. I responded: "This man, called Slim, had been a
military policeman guarding a prison compound. He was an
expert in Judo and a noted marksman. One of his prisoners
escaped. He had raised his rifle, but hesitated to shoot
the running man. One of his superiors called out: "Shoot,
Slim! For God's sake, shoot!" Somehow the suddenness of
the event, combined with the order: "For God's sake,
shoot!" completely baffled him, and he threw down his
rifle. A serious situation. Because he was then given the
5-year sentence of the escaped prisoner. And that was
five years at hard labor. Which meant that he was taken to
a local disciplinary camp. Under armed guard, he was
ordered to labor in a swamp, carrying stones. If he did
not carry or arrange the stones quickly enough, the guard
would beat him strongly with a sharp bamboo switch. After
a few weeks of this 'drill' he wondered how long he could
take it. Then suddenly he had a plan, and put it into
effect. The guard had beaten him with the bamboo with
particular ferocity. But he was able to grab the bamboo
and pull the guard into the pit. There he was able to
break his shoulder, grab his gun and get out of the pit,
where he commandeered a boat and escaped from the scene.
But then, aware of the grave future trouble he was causing
himself, he turned himself in, and was then awaiting trial
in the County Jail where, because they had failed to
search him, he came into the jail with a large .45 Colt
Pistol on a thong in his jacket. Later he called for the
FBI to come visit him. When the two men walked into his
cell, much to their fear and astonishment he pulled out
the .45 and handed it to them. I never knew what happened
to Slim. because I was myself temporarily released a few
days later. "So," Mr. Huxley concluded, "in a violent
country Slim refuses to kill in a crisis, is then treated
harshly, escapes and faces a dark future."
I then asked one more question of
Mr. Huxley: "Do you think in this world there will ever
be a true culture of ends and means governing life?"
He paused for a moment before
replying:
"Unfortunately, the possibility is minute! But this
doesn't mean that we should give up or that the game is not
worth the candle -- especially if the candle is lit with
the living flame of love!"
I thanked the Huxleys for their
gracious hospitality and was about to leave when Huxley put
up his hand and said: "One favor from you, please: If you
are put in prison, please send me a letter, and I will
surely reply."
I thanked him again before
leaving. And I did send him a letter from prison, and he
did graciously reply.
And two years
later I was able to read his splendid
Perennial
Philosophy, and then realized that, at the time of my
visit, he was just putting the finishing touches on it.
In it, I
discovered the quote from the 10th-Century Egyptian Sufi
Saint, Mohammed Al-Niffari, which directly inspired me to
paint The Voyage.
Back to the home page
of The Voyage
